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When was Shai Hulud formed? How was this band created?
Oh we’re getting right into this, oh jeez well this is the make me feel old question. I guess the band technically started in 1995 and without boring you to death with details I had some friends who didn’t know each other but all wanted to start a band with me and uh when the third guy said “hey do you want to start a band” I finally realized “hey maybe I should bring these guys together” so that was in 1995. So we all got together and we wanted to start a fast heavy melodic hardcore band that had a meaning and that would be the intended goal of Shai hulud
what does Shai hulud mean? Is there a story on how you picked this name for the band?
Is there a story? Yeah, well Shai hulud is the worm from dune and if you don’t know what “Dune” is it’s a novel by Frank Herbert and I think it was made into a movie is 1984 so story behind it is I wanted something from dune I really liked this book at the time and we were going over different names and our old bass player at the time he watched the movie at the time and he wanted to name it after this character and I said “ok which character are you talking about”? and he tried to explain it to me describing it as “kind of a long character, big and slimy looking” and I said “shai hulud? That’s what you want to name it”? and he goes “yeah if that’s the character I’m talking about” so we tried to explain it to eachother, we were on the phone and I said yeah I think you are talking about shai hulud and that sounds like great name and I said Cool! Alright lets name our band what’s funny though is that when we met the next time we saw each other we watched the movie and he pointed out a character and said that’s shai hulud right? And I said no, no that’s another character entirely uh so it was ironic for the band the name was based on a miscommunication he wanted the name the band after another character that’s called third stage navigator and at that point we had already sent a demo off to revelation and had booked a show so we stuck with shai hulud
How and when did you get signed to Metal Blade Records?
I think it was 2006 we actually signed and um how I met their publicist in 2003 or 2004 at metal feast with this girl named Kelly their publicist and we were talking about our favorite metal bands and she forced me to do this pirate imitation that I really didn’t want to do , I’m not too good at pirate imitations but we became very friendly and she heard my other band which is called zombie apocalypse because we were on a show with unearth so which she found out I was in Shai Hulud and she kept saying send me something we got to sign you guys so at that time we were very inactive trying to rebuild our line up and such but when we recorded our demo and she was the first person we sent it to and she really did all the leg work to get us signed and so it was just kind of lucky that she was as friendly and into the band as she was.
Did you ever expect to sign with Metal Blade Records?
Yeah I did and when I met Kelly in 2003 I was pretty certain that’s where we would go and not that I was certain that they would sign us but I knew she really liked us and we had a lot of friends on the label so I was really really confident that we were going to sign with metal blade
Last August you toured with Misery Signals along with means, the human abstract and others. Why did you choose to tour with Misery again?
Why, well we got offered this tour and it’s a great tour every band is pretty awesome whether its somebody likes the band or not its another thing every band brings something pretty significant to the tour so uh you’d have to be a real knuckle head to turn down a tour like this and ironically two of our favorite tours that we’d ever done out of many years of touring have been with misery signals last year we had such a great time with those guys and about two months ago we toured with comeback kid in Europe so two of our favorite tours and then two of our favorite bands all on one tour it’s a pretty sure thing for us
This years tour through Canada compared to last august, this was best for you?
Well uh not our best financially but our best tours as far as reaction or anything but it was one of our favorite tours were we felt that we got along really well with the bands and I think that misery signals are more real people then they are band people and we shai hulud are defiantly more real people then we are band people so we get along better with those kinds of people I’m not a band guy I don’t get along with people whose lives revolve around being in a band its just not my thing so that’s why I like touring with both comeback kid and misery signals.
Where has been your favorite place to tour?
Uh well I’m the kind of guy who is happy anywhere sometimes we’ll go somewhere and uh one guy in our band or some guy in another band will say “oh god I hate coming here” I don’t really hate going anywhere I’m fine with everything but I will have to say my favorite place I have ever been because its just like another world because its so far away is Japan we went to Japan in 2004 and uh like I said it’s the closest place to getting to another world like I said everybody looks different everybody sounds different and you can’t understand anything its just a lot of fun I think it’s a really big deal for anyone in north America to make their way to Japan so that’s my favorite tour spot.
How was the reaction of the crowd in Japan?
They seemed to like us, you know the shows weren’t packed we’re still a small band but the few hundred people that were there that night everyone seemed very into it. There were people jumping off stage, stage diving, and singing along. Of course they didn’t know what they were singing the funny thing is they knew the song but they didn’t know the words because they don’t speak English so they were singing along fanatically I remember specifically we have this one song that says “trust no one” and instead of singing trust no one the guy in front of me was screaming very passionately I might add were screaming words that resembled trust no one but he had no idea what they meant he just loved what he heard and was replicating it kind of like what I do when I sing along to the misfits because I have no idea what the hell they’re saying either, but yeah we were received very warmly in Japan.
On tour what is the craziest thing you have seen or has happened to you?
Oh well I’m not a very crazy guy, your talking to the wrong guy. You should probably ask misery signals that one. I do my best to stay away from crazy things I don’t do many things so uh I’m racking my brain on this one for you.
What about in the crowd what is something crazy done there you’ve seen?
Well I’ve seen people jump off speakers that were entirely too high to be jumped off of. I’ve defiantly seen some crazy pit antics, I seen you last year beat the *crap out of that kid right in front of me, I seen some pretty foolish fights like a good five people beating on one. Last night the singer of outbreak was dragged off the stage by his throat, but as far as fun crazy things like I said I’m the kind of guy who goes to the van after the show and takes a nap not too much craziness for me I wouldn’t have it in me anyway
When not on tour what we catch Shai Hulud doing in their free time?
When we’re not on tour? Yeah well I will keep it…don’t worry I’m a classy guy. What do I do when I’m not on tour, when I’m not sick, you’re always sick. I don’t like fun. I don’t like to do fun things, my life is pretty boring. I like to sit at home, I love to read. I’m not trying to get all personal on you but I love long walks, I love going out to dinner, I love watching movies and hanging out with a couple of guys. I’m a big board game guy you can always catch me playing scrabble and watching a movie, jeez even on a crazy night I might throw in a crossword puzzle. Yeah I’m a pretty simple guy and my idea of fun is just being mellow with a few friends, talking and playing a few board games.
What is the hardest part about being away from your family and friends to live out of a van for months at a time?
What’s the hardest part about that? Um tour is just inconvenient, you know? I got all my stuff in a van and all my stuff in a bag and I like to be organized. It’s a little rough when I reach into my bag and I can’t find what I need, nothing is where I want it, I put it somewhere and five minutes later its not there. Also just staying in a different place every night is fun and exciting but sometimes a pain. You know, this guy has no hot water or this hotel, you know random things that don’t appeal to your own creature comforts. So that’s always a little inconvenient but I always staying in touch with friends. I’m not super close with my family so the people in my family I’m close to particularly my cousins and my mother. I rather like tour so there isn’t too much complaining, the worst thing, and the absolute worst thing about being on tour is two things. One first of all is getting sick, being sick pisses me off. I’m sick again this tour, you got us all sick last tour. Getting sick pisses me off because people don’t take precautions to keep themselves healthy whether it’s just keeping your hands clean or our new guitar player refuses to changes his clothing before going outside in freezing cold weather and I yell at him saying “you’re going to get sick, if you get sick I’m going to get sick” so that really pisses me off or when somebody coughs they just cough into the van so inevitably I get sick. Luckily I’ve been fining it off this tour that’s the one thing. The second thing is meeting a lot of people that you wish you could spend a little more time with. Last tour I met you, you came on tour for a week and even that wasn’t enough time spent with you. This tour I met a lot of people both male and female which is kind of sad meeting new people at like 11:00 and next thing you know its 3:00 and your both going to bed separately and your not going to see them again for about another year. There is always still more you want to learn about that person or things you want to share with that person so that’s always really unfortunate, particularly on this tour even in the last few days there are some people I wish I had more time to sit down with. Those are my two least favorite things about tour.
This tour you came back to play your fans the new album Misanthropy pure, not only the title but the most popular song. Why do you think fans connect so well with this song?
That song in particular the reason why we made a video for it is because I thought it was really catchy and had a lot of really cool guitar parts people could catch onto and I thought the lyrics for it had a lot of meaning and that a lot of people could relate to. Everybody has problems with people and usually people have similar problems with other people. I think that song illustrates a lot of the common reasons why some people feel such angry emotions towards others. In particularly making the video the director said “oh man I love this one line because it reminds me of this one guy I know and I can’t stand this guy and every time I hear this song I think of him” and I heard that a few times in relation of the song so that’s one reason why we picked it and I think that’s why a lot of people can relate to it too. The lyrics really do hit the nail on the head at least certain types of people.
Does this song have any significance in your life?
Oh yes, I’m not going to give you names but I certainly had a few people in mind while writing it. You know some people who were very close to me that I was writing the lyrics about, for me unfortunately I always have some sort of resentment for other people and that song provided me an outlet to say “ off without having to say, off”. I don’t like to burn bridges or be confrontational so writing lyrics and that song again gave me an outlet to express myself instead of going to somebody and telling them what I think more often or not people aren’t willing to be constructively criticized. So thank you Misanthropy pure for letting me use you to express my grief’s.
How much time spent writing your new album?
Well it was a weird thing because metal blade wanted us to go into the studio a little sooner then we had planned so we only had a couple of months to really construct this album and once we had the structure set we did a lot of the final writing in the studio so to give you a time frame would be difficult. The songs were written prior but they weren’t fleshed out prior. So I would say collectively with the writing and recording process and this is not including time off because we were in the middle of writing when you went on tour with us last year and we did a couple of other tours in the middle of recording so I would say um maybe four to five months. From first starting it, to writing it, to completing it. It may have been a little less it may have been a little more I’m not really sure.
Out of the albums you wrote, which one means the most to you?
That’s a good question. Um and nobody really wants to answer that kind of question because it’s like asking a mother, do you have any siblings? “Mom which is your favorite”? You know what I mean? And what if she said your sister instead of you, you wouldn’t be too happy. Luckily, our albums aren’t people, so I can pick. Its really hard to say honestly because out of all our releases I was really proud of the first one not right away but after a few years when I got over the fact it didn’t turn out how I wanted it to. I become really fond of that one its called “A profound hatred of man” I’m really proud that was the first thing we released. Its too hard to pick one, I think my favorite would be this new one because well we all put our everything into it. I put my heart, my soul and even my brain and that’s not very much in to it. So I really struggled with that one but I’m really proud of the turn out. I pick Misanthropy pure because it’s the freshest and most unique one we’ve ever done it takes a lot of fuel and ideas that we’ve had. Misanthropy pure sounds to me like an old band doing something new and that would make it my favorite so far.
Should we be expecting many more albums from Shai Hulud?
Oh lets hope, I don’t know. I mean we’re defiantly working on another one right now very casually nothing that we’ve really sat down and started writing but we are working on some stuff. I would say that we are at the very least going to have one more album and probably have more after that.
Photograph By Broderick Leblanc